Washington – Frustrated with the performance of the American Red Cross, Alabama’s governor has asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for the federal aid necessary to let the state assume primary responsibility for operating its own emergency shelters in disasters.

The move comes after months of criticism of the Red Cross, inspired by what even the organization’s leaders acknowledge was its inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina last year.

“There are certain systemic problems with bureaucracies like the Red Cross that limit their ability to be as effective as we are going to have to be in future occurrences,” Gov. Bob Riley said Monday in a telephone interview.

The Red Cross has a special standing among the nation’s disaster-relief charities. It is formally charged in the government’s National Response Plan as a primary entity responsible for coordinating emergency shelters and other aspects of victim care during disasters.

That does not mean it runs all emergency shelters; many local and state governments and other charities have their own. But last year in Alabama and Mississippi, two of the states hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, the Red Cross was the primary shelter operator.

Riley, a Republican, said that too often the Red Cross shelters did not have all the necessary services or equipment, like showers, clinics and cafeterias, which became a particular problem when evacuees ended up living in the shelters for weeks.

To avoid that problem, Riley said, he would like to establish a network of official state shelters at 30 state junior colleges that could accommodate 25,000 evacuees.

“I am not willing to put people back in a place where I can’t give them a shower,” he said.

Riley made it clear Monday that his goal was to seek direct federal reimbursement for equipping shelters – including money needed for generators, cots and other supplies – and to run them with state staff members.

Riley made his request Friday in Mobile at the first of a series of meetings Chertoff is having with the governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and other hurricane- prone states in an effort to avoid the kind of problems that arose during and after Hurricane Katrina.